The information quality and source credibility matter in customers’ evaluation toward food O2O commerce

This study examines customer’s decision making when purchasing food product through O2O commerce applying the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and the technology acceptance model (TAM). Further, this research investigates which information processing path, central route (information quality) or peripheral route (source credibility), is related to purchase frequency. Results of the data analysis demonstrate (1) the positive relationship between information quality, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use; (2) the significant relationship between source credibility, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use; (3) the significant influence of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use on customer trust; and (4) the significant relationships among customer trust, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. In addition, customers with high purchase frequency tend to process messages via the central route, while customers with low purchase frequency focus on the peripheral route. These findings provide theoretical and managerial implications that contribute to O2O commerce marketing.     

Seniors’ dual route of persuasive communications in mobile social media and the moderating role of discretionary time

More than two-thirds of seniors use smartphones and in South Korea, over half of all senior smartphone owners are mobile social media (MSM) users. This study tested two basic routes to persuasion in the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), applying the new concepts of benefits and authentic experience among senior MSM users for travel- and tourism-related purposes, along with the moderating role of discretionary time spent on MSM. To this end, an online survey was conducted for senior MSM users for tourism activities, and partial least squares structural equation modeling was employed to analyze data obtained from 500 study participants. Results reveal that argument quality had a stronger effect on benefit than source credibility. Benefits and authentic experience played important mediating roles in the ELM. Discretionary time on MSM played a significant moderating role in the central and peripheral routes. Theoretical and practical contributions are discussed in the conclusions section.     

Framing corporate social responsibility for a controversial product

ABSTRACT

Firms operating casino businesses such as casino hotels often face scrutiny with heightened suspicion regarding the intent of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative. This study examined how persuasive intent and the CSR issue influenced consumers’ processing of a CSR initiative for a casino hotel. The results of an experiment showed that participants reacted favorably to a CSR initiative, but such positive reactions disappeared when persuasive intent was explicit in the CSR message. This study further explored the underlying mechanism by testing a moderated mediation model in which issue importance in a CSR initiative acted as a moderator.     

How recreation involvement,place attachment and conservation commitment affect environmentally responsible behavior

This study examines a behavioral model using latent variables of place attachment, recreation involvement, conservation commitment and environmentally responsible behavior among tourists visiting wetlands. In total, 928 usable questionnaires were collected. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were applied to the data by using LISREL 8.70 for Windows. Analytical results, which further elucidate the behavioral models of nature-based tourism, suggest that place attachment, recreation involvement and conservation commitment critically impact environmentally responsible behavior. In this behavioral model, conservation commitment simultaneously and partially mediates the relationships between place attachment and environmentally responsible behavior and between recreation involvement and environmentally responsible behavior. A series of management implications are drawn, including the need to use this information via a visitor interpretation strategy, greater use of partnerships with local communities and businesses to spread the importance of wetlands and of environmentally friendly behavior, and the need to work with other wetlands to share the type of visitor motivations best suited to encourage environmentally friendly behavior.     

The application of Aristotle’s rhetorical theory to the sharing economy: an empirical study of Airbnb

ABSTRACT

Sharing economy businesses require extensive trust-based communication between users and service providers to facilitate users’ positive persuasion processes. Based on Aristotle’s rhetorical theory, this study identifies three key persuasive cues (credibility, emotional bonding, and accommodation characteristics) and validates their roles in establishing users’ trust in an Airbnb setting. The moderating role of interactivity is further analyzed. Research findings from a survey sample of 171 Airbnb users indicate that persuasive cues are positively associated with trust in Airbnb hosts, which significantly leads to Airbnb brand trust. Interestingly, the moderating role of interactivity is only found in the relationship between emotional bonding and trust in Airbnb hosts. This study contributes to a better understanding of the factors that affect users’ trust building in the sharing economy context, and it offers guidance for platform providers to better operate their businesses by highlighting the important roles of persuasive cues and interactivity in users’ trust-building processes.     

An exploration of the factors influencing social media continuance usage and information sharing intentions among Korean travellers

The tourism and hospitality industry is largely influenced by the use of social media. However, there is still a need for more empirical research about the factors social media continuance usage and information sharing intentions among travel-related social media (TSM) users. With this realization, underpinned by elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and uses and gratifications theory (UGT), our study investigates the interrelationships of argument quality, source credibility, and information seeking, entertainment, and relationship maintenance motives, and social media continuance usage and information sharing intentions. Data gathered from TSM users in Korea were used to gauge the relationships through structural equation modeling. Argument quality leads to an increased activity in information seeking and entertainment motives, while source credibility positively influences information seeking, entertainment, and relationship maintenance motives. Information seeking, entertainment, and relationship maintenance motives trigger travelers' propensity to display higher social media continuance usage and information sharing intentions.     

Mainstreaming sustainable tourism with user-centred design

Abstract

Efforts to design and communicate sustainable tourism products have been based on the premise of explicit market demand for sustainability. This study tests whether it is possible to design mainstream sustainable tourism products that circumvent customer scrutiny of their sustainability features, by making sustainability implicit (as part of quality product design) and communicating hedonistic benefits instead. This is akin to using the peripheral route of communication, as explained in the Elaboration Likelihood Model, as the central route emphasises the consumer-driven message of overall quality of experience; the approach lessens the need for customers to be conscious of the sustainability consequences of their actions. The methodology proposed to achieve this is user-centred design (UCD), which places insights into customer needs, values and demands at the heart of new product design. We designed sustainable tourist activities using UCD and then appraised customer demand for them. Although this may seem counterintuitive, the results show that it can be more effective than traditional methods in mainstreaming sustainable activities, through choice-editing of unsustainable ones and normalising the appearance and communication of sustainability, provided a focus on sustainability is maintained by the product provider.     

Loss or gain? The role of message framing in hotel guests’ recycling behaviour

Abstract

One of the major challenges for the tourism sector is enacting sustainable behaviours. A key strategy for hoteliers is developing persuasive messages, with the goal of encouraging guests’ voluntary participation in green programmes. Through the lens of prospect theory and construal level theory, the present study investigates to what extent a loss or gain-framed message influences recycling of hotel guests via a field and a laboratory experiment. The field experiment tests the moderating effect of message construal level (concrete or abstract) on the message frame that activate pro-environmental behaviour, while the laboratory study delves further into the mechanism by showing that perceived self-efficacy is the mechanism behind the activation of these behaviours. The findings from both studies suggest that hotel guests are more likely to engage in recycling behaviour when a concrete message is paired with a loss-framed message, because of a greater perceived self-efficacy. These results help to understand the theoretical psychological mechanisms and offer managerial implications for operators on how to engage guests to be active partners in sustainable tourism behaviours.     

Disentangling green service innovative behavior among hospitality employees: The role of customer green involvement

Regardless of the role of customers in co-creating value with organizations, how customer involvement drives employees, particularly in the hospitality industry, to engage in green service innovative endeavors has been scarcely examined. This study seeks to uncover how and when customer green involvement nurtures green service innovative behavior among hotel employees. The dataset was formed from the responses from 519 employees and 84 managers working in Vietnam-based hotels and analyzed via multilevel structural equation modeling. The results demonstrated the role of hotel employees’ green information management motivations (i.e., green information proactiveness, transparency, and formality) in mediating the positive relationship between customer green involvement and employee green service innovative behavior. Internal green marketing orientation functioned as an enhancer for the effects of customer green involvement on green information management motivations. This research contributes to the stream of green behavior research by bringing together customer green involvement and green service innovative behavior in the hospitality literature and unraveling the mechanisms behind their relationship.     

Disclosing personal information via hotel apps: A privacy calculus perspective

In an era dominated by mobile apps as the final element of the value chain, hotel: firms strive to offer their guests new levels of personalization. To obtain such personalization benefits, consumers need to disclose personal information to hotels, thus threatening their privacy. Engaging in a calculus of benefits and risks associated with information disclosure, consumers may overcome their risk perceptions and opt to disclose personal information. Using data from a sample of hotel: guests from the U.S., this study developed and empirically validated a conceptual model based on an extended version of the privacy calculus model that explained consumers’ willingness to disclose personal information via hotel: apps. It was found that trust in the app and the overall value of information disclosure has significant impacts on personal information disclosure via apps. Several important implications for theory and practice of these findings are discussed.     

Nutrition Labeling for Restaurant Menu Items: College Students’ Preferences for Nutrition Information and Its Influence on Purchase Intention

During the college years, young adults develop eating habits and concerns that follow them throughout their lives. Understanding college students’ menu selections in dining-out situations can provide insight into their eating habits. This study aimed to investigate college students’ preferences for types of nutrition information (such as macronutrients and total calories, specific nutrients, and health claims) on restaurant menus, and the impact of nutrition information on purchase intention. The presence of caloric and macronutrient information on restaurant menus was found to significantly affect purchase intention. The findings provide a foundation for future hospitality studies investigating dining-out menus as a persuasive tool for better health, and suggest strategies for industry professionals.     

Leisure Involvement,Job Satisfaction,and Service Performance among Frontline Restaurant Employees

The importance of employee leisure involvement to employee service performance has been suggested but not tested in the literature. This study closes this research gap by inspecting the direct consequence of leisure involvement on service performance and leisure involvement’s indirect effect on service performance via job satisfaction for frontline service employees. This study uses a sample of 313 restaurant employees collected from Bandung, Indonesia. The proposed model is tested using variance-based SEM-PLS. The results show the importance of leisure involvement as a determinant of frontline service performance. Moreover, this study reveals that the effect of leisure involvement on service performance is partially mediated by job satisfaction. The conceptual and practical significance of these results are reviewed.     

Using persuasive communication to co-create behavioural change – engaging with guests to save resources at tourist accommodation facilities

ABSTRACT

Unsustainable consumption of energy and water by tourist accommodation will escalate if incremental global tourism growth and business-as-usual approaches continue. Guests use more than half of the energy and water at accommodation facilities and so have a partnership role to play in saving resources. Our study is the first to measure the impact of persuasive communication on guests’ resource consumption behaviour (energy and water use) and stay satisfaction. It used an innovative intervention based on interpersonal communication, sequential influence and eco-feedback. Guests’ (n = 759) consumption of electricity, gas and water was monitored at four fully self-contained cottages using smart meters, over a period of 304 days. An ethnographic study, action research and departure survey examined if pro-environmental persuasion could encourage guests to save resources, how guests responded to the intervention and measured whether pro-environmental persuasion affected guest satisfaction. Results show that guests who received the intervention used significantly fewer resources, 80% claimed they tried to save and their overall satisfaction was not negatively affected, while reasons to save/not save were complex. A resource-saving persuasion model is proposed for further research, practitioners are recommended to install pro-environmental infrastructure, train staff to engage customers, and identify responsible channels for fiscal savings.     

Restaurants and wine by-the-glass consumption: Motivational process model of risk perception,involvement and information-related behaviour

This study examines how wine by-the-glass (WBG) consumption by diners in USA restaurants is affected by their risk perception, product involvement, information seeking and dissemination-related behaviours and, how these constructs interact in this situation. We model their motivational process by developing a structural equation model (SEM) to examine these effects using a sample of 532 diners representing all restaurant categories in the USA. In the process we develop and validate a 17-item scale to measure the risk perception specific to WBG consumption. This empirical study supports all hypotheses tested in the motivational process model, which explicates the processes by which consumer WBG risk perception and product involvement are caused and influence one another, as well as the subsequent information processing behaviour-related responses of restaurant diners.     

Antecedents and consequences of destination image gap

The purpose of this study is to examine the antecedents that explain changes to the image that first-time tourists have (pre- and post-visit image gap) of a destination and its impact on satisfaction and loyalty through the design and validation of a model. The research has been carried out using a sample of 411 tourists in Tenerife (Spain). The involvement with the trip, the time dedicated to the search for information, and the number of attractions visited influence the change in cognitive image. The factors that explain the time spent searching for information are uncertainty, involvement, and duration and intensity of the visit. The positive gap in the image generates greater satisfaction, which has a positive impact in the loyalty.     

Revisiting the host city: An empirical examination of sport involvement,place attachment,event satisfaction and spectator intentions at the London Olympics

This paper tests a model based on hypothesized relationships among sport involvement, place evaluations; at the level of venue and host city, and event satisfaction as antecedents of behavioral intentions. The relationships are explored among a sample of people attending the 2012 London Olympic Games (n = 603). Spectators completed questionnaires at event venues, providing responses at the place and time of the consumptive experience. Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to determine the dimensions of the constructs and to test the validity of measurement items. The structural model indicated that sport involvement and place attachment influenced revisit intentions but this was not the case for event satisfaction. This suggests that although tourism will benefit when spectators experience a psychological connection with event venues, the Olympic Games offer a distinctive event experience that does not have a direct influence on intentions to revisit the host city.     

A destination-branding model: An empirical analysis based on stakeholders

The purpose of this study is to develop a destination-branding model based on stakeholders’ interests. It is subsequently applied to a tourist destination, namely Castilla-La Mancha (CLM), thereby creating an index that measures destination branding’s success based on similarities and differences among the different stakeholders. The index, called Success Index of Triple-Diamonds (SITD), provides an empirical evaluation of the destination brand’s degree of success and confirms the existence of differences among stakeholders. The current study offers useful information for developing strategy on the part of Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) and reveals the risks of a traditional strategy focused only on visitors that ignores the objectives of local people and entrepreneurs.     

An Empirical Examination of the Antecedents of Film Tourism Experience: A Structural Model Approach

This study aims to empirically examine the antecedents of film tourism experience associated with a serialized TV drama. Drawing on film tourism and media-communication studies, a theoretical model for the causal interrelationship between production values of the TV drama, audience involvement with it, and film tourism experience at its filmed location was tested empirically using structural equation modeling (SEM) methodologies. Responses were drawn from a cross-sectional data sample of international visitors via a survey executed at Daejanggeum Theme Park in Korea. The results indicate that production values and audience involvement have a direct, positive impact on film tourism experience. Moreover, the production values have a mediating, positive impact on film tourism experience through the audience involvement construct.     

Unraveling the dynamic and contingency mechanism between service experience and customer engagement with luxury hotel brands

This study unravels the dynamic and contingency mechanism between service experience and customer engagement with luxury hotel brands by investigating a multi-step model linking these two variables, in which emotional attachment and relational quality constructs (i.e., brand satisfaction, brand trust, and brand commitment) act as a bridge, while customer involvement acts as a moderator. Based on a self-administered survey dataset of 249 international tourists who are customers of luxury hotel brands, partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that all proposed hypotheses are supported. As such, this study discovers and clarifies the nature and dynamic mechanism underpinning the co-creation and reciprocation process of customer engagement with luxury hotels. In particular, the positive service experience is found to contribute to customer engagement via emotional attachment and relational marketing. Furthermore, the moderating role of customer involvement in the luxury hotel setting is confirmed.     

Wine tourism involvement: a segmentation of Chinese tourists

ABSTRACT

This study profiles the Chinese wine tourist market based on levels of consumer involvement. Using a sample of 503 Chinese wine tourists visiting Australian wineries, the study identified four dimensions of involvement in wine tourism among Chinese tourists: Interests and Importance, Risk Importance and Possibility, Risk Avoidance, and Status Value. Based on the various levels of involvement, four clusters of Chinese wine tourists were identified: low-involvement wine tourists, highly involved wine tourists, interest-driven wine tourists, and high-risk perception wine tourists. For the group size, high-risk perception wine tourists included the highest number of people in the sample, while a relatively small number of people belonged to the interest-driven group. Significant differences were found for behavioral variables and activity participation level across the four clusters, but similarity outweighed the differences among demographic and socio-economic variables. The research proceeded to theoretical and marketing implications.